Editor's Note: Originally published Jan. 15, 2004, this has been re-featured due to its timeless content.

The United States came into being through mass movements of populations. The movements came in waves from all over the world and, depending upon the historical moment, they served differing purposes, but there were two constants. First, each wave served an indispensable economic, political, military or social function. The United States -- as a nation and regime -- would not have evolved as it did without them. Second, each wave of immigrants was viewed ambiguously by those who were already in-country. Depending upon the time or place, some saw the new immigrants as an indispensable boon; others saw them as a catastrophe. The debate currently under way in the United States is probably the oldest in the United States: Are new immigrants a blessing or catastrophe? So much for the obvious.

What is interesting about the discussion of immigration is the extent to which it is dominated by confusion, particularly about the nature of immigrants. When the term "immigrant" is used, it is frequently intended to mean one of two things: Sometimes it means non-U.S. citizens who have come to reside in the United States legally. Alternatively, it can mean a socially or linguistically distinct group that lives in the United States regardless of legal status. When you put these together in their various permutations, the discourse on immigration can become chaotic. It is necessary to simplify and clarify the concept of "immigrant."

Initial U.S. immigration took two basic forms. There were the voluntary migrants, ranging from the Europeans in the 17th century to Asians today. There were the involuntary migrants -- primarily Africans -- who were forced to come to the continent against their will. This is one of the critical fault lines running through U.S. history. An immigrant who came from China in 1995 has much more in common with the Puritans who arrived in New England more than 300 years ago than either has with the Africans. The former came by choice, seeking solutions to their personal or political problems. The latter came by force, brought here to solve the personal or political problems of others. This is one fault line.

The second fault line is between those who came to the United States and those to whom the United States came. The Native American tribes, for example, were conquered and subjugated by the immigrants who came to the United States before and after its founding. It should be noted that this is a process that has taken place many times in human history. Indeed, many Native American tribes that occupied the United States prior to the foreign invasion had supplanted other tribes -- many of which were obliterated in the process. Nevertheless, in a strictly social sense, Native American tribes were militarily defeated and subjugated, their legal status in the United States was sometimes ambiguous and their social status was frequently that of outsiders. They became immigrants because the occupants of the new United States moved and dislocated them.

There was a second group of people in this class: Mexicans. A substantial portion of the United States, running from California to Texas, was conquered territory, taken from Mexico in the first half of the 19th century. Mexico existed on terrain that Spain had seized from the Aztecs, who conquered it from prior inhabitants. Again, this should not be framed in moral terms. It should be framed in geopolitical terms.

When the United States conquered the southwest, the Mexican population that continued to inhabit the region was not an immigrant population, but a conquered one. As with the Native Americans, this was less a case of them moving to the United States than the United States moving to them.

The response of the Mexicans varied, as is always the case, and they developed a complex identity. Over time, they accepted the political dominance of the United States and became, for a host of reasons, U.S. citizens. Many assimilated into the dominant culture. Others accepted the legal status of U.S. citizens while maintaining a distinct cultural identity. Still others accepted legal status while maintaining intense cultural and economic relations across the border with Mexico. Others continued to regard themselves primarily as Mexican.

The U.S.-Mexican border is in some fundamental ways arbitrary. The line of demarcation defines political and military relationships, but does not define economic or cultural relationships. The borderlands -- and they run hundreds of miles deep into the United States at some points -- have extremely close cultural and economic links with Mexico. Where there are economic links, there always are movements of population. It is inherent.

The persistence of cross-border relations is inevitable in borderlands that have been politically and militarily subjugated, but in which the prior population has been neither annihilated nor expelled. Where the group on the conquered side of the border is sufficiently large, self-contained and self-aware, this condition can exist for generations. A glance at the Balkans offers an extreme example. In the case of the United States and its Mexican population, it also has continued to exist.

This never has developed into a secessionist movement, for a number of reasons. First, the preponderance of U.S. power when compared to Mexico made this a meaningless goal. Second, the strength of the U.S. economy compared to the Mexican economy did not make rejoining Mexico attractive. Finally, the culture in the occupied territories evolved over the past 150 years, yielding a complex culture that ranged from wholly assimilated to complex hybrids to predominantly Mexican. Secessionism has not been a viable consideration since the end of the U.S. Civil War. Nor will it become an issue unless a remarkable change in the balance between the United States and Mexico takes place.

It would be a mistake, however, to think of the cross-border movements along the Mexican-U.S. border in the same way we think of the migration of people to the United States from other places such as India or China, which are an entirely different phenomenon -- part of the long process of migrations to the United States that has taken place since before its founding. In these, individuals made decisions -- even if they were part of a mass movement from their countries -- to move to the United States and, in moving to the United States, to adopt the dominant American culture to facilitate assimilation. The Mexican migrations are the result of movements in a borderland that has been created through military conquest and the resulting political process.

The movement from Mexico is, from a legal standpoint, a cross-border migration. In reality, it is simply an internal migration within a territory whose boundaries were superimposed by history. Put differently, if the United States had lost the Mexican-American war, these migrations would be no more noteworthy than the mass migration to California from the rest of the United States in the middle of the 20th century. But the United States did not lose the war -- and the migration is across international borders.

It should be noted that this also distinguishes Mexican population movements from immigration from other Hispanic countries. The closest you can come to an equivalent is in Puerto Rico, whose inhabitants are U.S. citizens due to prior conquest. They neither pose the legal problems of Mexicans nor can they simply slip across the border.

The Mexican case is one-of-a-kind, and the difficulty of sealing the border is indicative of the real issue. There are those who call for sealing the border and, technically, it could be done although the cost would be formidable. More important, turning the politico-military frontier into an effective barrier to movement would generate social havoc. It would be a barrier running down the middle of an integrated social and economic reality. The costs for the region would be enormous, piled on top of the cost of walling off the frontier from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.

If the U.S. goal is to create an orderly migration process from Mexico, which fits into a broader immigration policy that includes the rest of the world, that probably cannot be done. Controlling immigration in general is difficult, but controlling the movement of an indigenous population in a borderland whose frontiers do not cohere to social or economic reality is impossible.

This is not intended to be a guide to social policy. Our general view is that social policies dealing with complex issues usually have such wildly unexpected consequences that it is more like rolling the dice than crafting strategy. We nevertheless understand that there will be a social policy, hotly debated by all sides that will wind up not doing what anyone expects, but actually will do something very different.

The point we are trying to make is simpler. First, the question of Mexican population movements has to be treated completely separately from other immigrations. These are apples and oranges. Second, placing controls along the U.S.-Mexican frontier is probably impossible. Unless we are prepared to hermetically seal the frontier, populations will flow endlessly around barriers, driven by economic and social factors. Mexico simply does not end at the Mexican border, and it hasn't since the United States defeated Mexico. Neither the United States nor Mexico can do anything about the situation.

The issue, from our point of view, cuts to the heart of geopolitics as a theory. Geopolitics argues that geographic reality creates political, social, economic and military realities. These can be shaped by policies and perhaps even controlled to some extent, but the driving realities of geopolitics can never simply be obliterated, except by overwhelming effort and difficulty. The United States is not prepared to do any of these things and, therefore, the things the United States is prepared to do are doomed to ineffectiveness..

Marco Rubio—41-year-old son of working-class Cuban exiles—has lived the upwardly mobile immigrant experience. In his fast rise, the Florida Republican has also experienced the politics of immigration. That story isn't so inspirational.

During his successful Senate campaign two years ago, an attack leaflet picturing "the Real Rubio" alongside an image of Che Guevara was sent to GOP voters. The mailer noted that Mr. Rubio championed laws in the state legislature to give children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition and health benefits. After going to Washington, he was then criticized for not doing enough on immigration reform. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus branded him "a wolf in sheep's clothing" and a Miami-based Hispanic group called him "a Benedict Arnold."

That may be mild compared to what's coming. Florida's junior senator and one of America's most prominent Hispanic politicians wants to take the Republican lead on immigration reform. Getting out front of President Obama's campaign pledge to overhaul the system in his second term, Mr. Rubio is laying out his ideas for possible legislation.

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CloseTerry Shoffner .Whether Mr. Rubio is courageous or foolhardy, the outcome on Capitol Hill and the impact on his career will tell the story. Immigration has long been a profitable wedge issue for Democrats and Republicans. On Wednesday at the Biltmore Hotel near his home here, Mr. Rubio spells out a reform plan that charges up the middle.

His wholesale fix tries to square—triangulate, if you will—the liberal fringe that seeks broad amnesty for illegal immigrants and the hard right's obsession with closing the door. Mr. Rubio would ease the way for skilled engineers and seasonal farm workers while strengthening border enforcement and immigration laws. As for the undocumented migrants in America today—eight to 12 million or so—he proposes to let them "earn" a working permit and, one day, citizenship.

Those proposals amount to a collection of third rails for any number of lobbies. Organized labor has torpedoed guest-worker programs before. Anything that hints of leniency for illegals may offend the talk-radio wing of the GOP.

Mr. Rubio burst onto the national stage with his 2010 upset win amid the tea party surge. His conservative bona fides come with an appreciation for the realities of legislative politics. He starts by stressing that "legal immigration has been, for our country, one of the things that makes us vibrant and exceptional." But then, in a nod to GOP restrictionists: "Every country in the world has immigration laws and expects to enforce them and we should be no different."

Any overhaul, he says, needs to "modernize" legal immigration. America caps the number of visas for skilled workers and favors the relatives of people already here. "I'm a big believer in family-based immigration," he says. "But I don't think that in the 21st century we can continue to have an immigration system where only 6.5% of people who come here, come here based on labor and skill. We have to move toward merit and skill-based immigration."

He says the U.S. can either change the ratio of preferences for family-based immigration or raise the hard cap on people who bring investment or skills into the country. He prefers the latter, noting that the U.S. doesn't produce enough science, math and engineering graduates to fill the open posts in high-tech. He says this number can be adjusted to demand: "I don't think there's a lot of concern in this country that we'll somehow get overrun by Ph.D.s and entrepreneurs."

At the other end of the skill and wage scale, most of the 1.6 million agricultural laborers in America are Hispanics, the bulk of them illegal immigrants. American produce couldn't be picked without them. The number and type of visas provided through a guest-worker program would have to be sufficient to address this pressing need. From Georgia to Washington state in recent seasons, unpicked fruits and vegetables have rotted in the fields. He'd look to increase the number of visas for permanent or seasonal farm workers.

"The goal is to give American agriculture a reliable work force and to give protection to these workers as well," Mr. Rubio says. "When someone is [undocumented] they're vulnerable to being exploited."

Initially, the illegal migrants now in the U.S. would mostly "avail themselves" of the guest-worker system, says Mr. Rubio. "Just the process to come here to legally work in agriculture is very difficult and very expensive. It doesn't work well. So that alone encourages illegal immigration."

Lest anyone take Mr. Rubio for an immigration softy, he has co-sponsored Senate enforcement legislation championed by restrictionists. The E-Verify law, which has been adopted in several states, would if passed oblige employers to check the legal status of prospective workers against a federal database. Detractors say the database is faulty and error-prone, and the law turns workplace bosses into immigration agents and merely pushes illegal workers further into the shadows, making them more vulnerable to abuse.

Mr. Rubio stands by workplace enforcement as an essential component of any immigration reform. If the guest-worker and expanded high-tech visa programs are adopted, he says, "you want to protect those folks that are coming here . . . and the value of their visa and the decision they've made. You're not protecting them if you allow their wages and their status to be undermined by further illegal immigration in the future."

He says that modern technology—whether E-Verify or something else—ought to let employers easily check whether their hires are in the country legally. Enforcement is meant not to "punish" but to provide employers "safe haven," he says.

As for the border, "we know what we need to do to gain more operational control," which he says is to invest in people and infrastructure. Unlike many Republicans, Mr. Rubio doesn't say that improved enforcement is a precondition for immigration reform. Such reform would, by his argument, ensure that fewer people will need or want to risk an arduous border crossing.

Politically hardest is the question of the up to 12 million illegals currently here. Mr. Rubio's proposal allows for adults who overstayed their visa or sneaked in to come into the open.

"Here's how I envision it," he says. "They would have to come forward. They would have to undergo a background check." Anyone who committed a serious crime would be deported. "They would be fingerprinted," he continues. "They would have to pay a fine, pay back taxes, maybe even do community service. They would have to prove they've been here for an extended period of time. They understand some English and are assimilated. Then most of them would get legal status and be allowed to stay in this country."

The special regime he envisions is a form of temporary limbo. "Assuming they haven't violated any of the conditions of that status," he says, the newly legalized person could apply for permanent residency, possibly leading to citizenship, after some years—but Mr. Rubio doesn't specify how many years. He says he would also want to ensure that enforcement has improved before opening that gate.

The waiting time for a green card "would have to be long enough to ensure that it's not easier to do it this way than it would be the legal way," he says. "But it can't be indefinite either. I mean it can't be unrealistic, because then you're not really accomplishing anything. It's not good for our country to have people trapped in this status forever. It's been a disaster for Europe."

The staged process won't please either the blanket amnesty crowd or the Minutemen. Still others have tried to split the difference by arguing for a permanent noncitizen legal-resident status for illegal immigrants and their offspring, on the German and French model.

Mr. Rubio repeatedly says his plan "is not blanket amnesty or a special pathway to citizenship." The illegals wouldn't jump any lines, "they'd get behind everybody who came before them." No one would be asked to leave the country to qualify, but the requirements he sets out merely to get a working permit are "significant."

"In an ideal world we wouldn't have eight, 10 million people who are undocumented," he says. "We have to address this reality. But we have to do it in a way that's responsible."

Mr. Rubio makes an exception for the over one million younger illegals. Along the lines of the Dream Act that stalled in Congress last year, he says people who came here unlawfully with their parents should be accommodated "in a more expedited manner than the rest of the population" to gain a way to naturalize.

During last year's debate over the Dream Act, Mr. Rubio tried to gather support for a less "broad" alternative. Republicans didn't like its pathway to citizenship. His efforts caught the eye of the Obama campaign. President Obama pre-empted—or outmaneuvered—him. The president's executive order offered two-year reprieves from deportation and work permits for young immigrants, and helped him with Hispanics in the election.

It was a lesson for Mr. Rubio, who saw his compromise efforts die as a result. Mr. Obama "may have even set back the cause a bit. He's poisoned the well for people willing to take on this issue," Mr. Rubio says. But he's still ready to do so, though he claims—as hard as it is to believe—that he hasn't "done the political calculus on this." As he knows, politics is everything on immigration. Comprehensive efforts failed twice under the Bush administration. President Obama promised in both campaigns to act, but then he didn't, even when Democrats controlled Congress his first two years.

In terms of legislative strategy, Mr. Rubio says he would want to see "a comprehensive package of bills"—maybe four or five as opposed to one omnibus—move through Congress concurrently. He says other experience with "comprehensive" reform (ObamaCare, the recent debt deal) shows how bad policy easily sneaks into big bills. It would also offer a tempting big target for opponents. Other reformers think that only a comprehensive bill can address the toughest issues. "It's not a line in the sand for me," replies Mr. Rubio.

Not missing a chance to tweak the president, he says that Mr. Obama has "not done a thing" on reform and may prefer to keep it alive as an electoral winner for Democrats with Hispanics for years to come. But, then again, "maybe he's interested in his legacy," Mr. Rubio adds, and open to a deal. The president, he says, would need to bring over Big Labor and talk back the most ardent pro-immigration groups from "unrealistic" positions on citizenship for illegals.

On the right, nativist voices in last year's primary campaign gave birth to phrases such as "electric fence" (Herman Cain), "self-deportation" (Mitt Romney) and other nuggets that turned Hispanic voters off. Mr. Rubio counters that most conservatives understand that immigrants are entrepreneurial and assimilate easily. "Immigration is actually an important part of affirming a limited-government movement," he says.

Is immigration reform a magic bullet for the GOP's troubles with Hispanic voters?

"No," Mr. Rubio says, but "the immigration issue is a gateway issue for Hispanics, no doubt about it. No matter what your stance is on a number of other issues, if people somehow come to believe that you don't like them or want them here, it's difficult to get them to listen to anything else."

He adds: "I think it's the rhetoric by a handful of voices in the minority, but loud nonetheless, that have allowed the left to create an unfair perception that conservatives and Republicans are anti-Hispanic and anti-immigration, and we do have to overcome that."

After two relatively quiet years in the Senate, Mr. Rubio is taking his first significant risk. Often mentioned in talk about a 2016 presidential run, he has decided to make immigration a signature issue.

Obama Tips His Hand: He Would Rather Have the Immigration Issue to Run on in 2014

Here's the immigration debate in a nutshell: Obama and most of the Democrats want 11 million new Democratic voters, and they want them now. This is why the "non-immigrant visa" and temporary working papers, with a potential path to citizenship that could take 15 years, aren't sufficient for them.The most infuriating bits of Obama's campaign rally to demand the passage of immigration-reform legislation that he hasn't introduced yet:I'm here today because the time has come for common-sense, comprehensive immigration reform. Applause.) The time is now. Now is the time. Now is the time. Now is the time.AUDIENCE: Sí se puede! Sí se puede!THE PRESIDENT: Now is the time.

Gee, you think he had a slogan he wanted to make sure got in the coverage? Later:

We can't allow immigration reform to get bogged down in an endless debate. We've been debating this a very long time. So it's not as if we don't know technically what needs to get done.

Oh, really? Because the whole reason this is controversial is because there is genuine, passionate disagreement about "what needs to get done."

And if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion, I will send up a bill based on my proposal and insist that they vote on it right away.

Oh, really? And what will that do? Hey, Mr. President, if Congress is unable to move forward in a timely fashion in their own compromise put together by both parties, what are the odds that a GOP House will pass your bill? See, this is the indicator that you don't really want a bill passed; you want the issue to run on in 2014, telling Latino voters about how those mean, nasty Republicans blocked citizenship for cousin Luis.

Senator Rubio is underwhelmed:

"I am concerned by the president's unwillingness to accept significant enforcement triggers before current undocumented immigrants can apply for a green card. Without such triggers in place, enforcement systems will never be implemented and we will be back in just a few years dealing with millions of new undocumented people in our country. Furthermore, the president ignored the need for a modernized guest worker program that will ensure those who want to immigrate legally to meet our economy's needs can do so in the future. Finally, the President's speech left the impression that he believes reforming immigration quickly is more important than reforming immigration right. A reform of our immigration laws is a consequential undertaking that deserves to be subjected to scrutiny and input from all involved. I was encouraged by the president's explicit statement that people with temporary legal status won't be eligible for Obamacare. If in fact they were, the potential cost of reform would blow open another big, gaping hole in our federal budget and make the bill untenable."

Bryan Preston: "Obama is not proposing legislation, but the gruel he is offering is designed to pull the debate to the left and weaken the already weak push for real security on the border. The president is putting his cards on the table to undermine American sovereignty. In due time, he'll pull the rug out from under Sen. Marco Rubio and the Republicans involved in the Gang of Eight, and they can be expected to play the fool."

At Reason, Ed Krayewski notices, "While President Obama now assumes the role of advocate for immigration reform, the last time Washington attempted the endeavor, in 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama did his part to ensure its failure, the kind of partisan play Obama now laments in Congress and says he condemns."============================The Foundation"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas JeffersonEditorial Exegesis

"President Obama has never been known for getting his hands dirty with legislative details, and he certainly didn't with his remarks on Tuesday about immigration. ... One problem is the lack of any mention of a guest-worker program for new migrants, especially low-skilled workers of the kind who arrive in greater numbers when economic times are good. Mr. Obama sounded good when he talked about providing more visas for high-skilled workers, and we support his call to 'staple a green card' to the diplomas of foreign graduates with technical degrees from U.S. universities in engineering, mathematics and the sciences. But the U.S. also needs more legal ways for low-skilled immigrants to enter the country -- not merely to fill labor needs in the likes of agriculture and construction but also to reduce illegal immigration in the future. ... Another red flag is Mr. Obama's apparent refusal to accept enforcement triggers before illegal migrants currently in the country can apply for a green card. We don't think more border enforcement is the main reason illegal immigration is down. Mr. Obama bragged in his speech that 'illegal crossings are down nearly 80% from their peak in 2000.' But that has much less to do with enforcement than with the lousy U.S. economy, especially since 2008. The biggest barrier to more illegal immigration has been Obamanomics. However, the lack of an enforcement trigger is important politically because Republican reformers will need it to convince their conservative rank and file that the U.S. won't be back at the same old stand five years after reform passes. If Mr. Obama wants reform to fail so he can blame Republicans, the fastest way to do it is by pressing for easy green cards for current illegals with too few strings attached. ... t wouldn't hurt if, for once in his Presidency, he tried to understand what can pass with a bipartisan coalition instead of with liberals only."

The context to the current lull in illegal immigration is that the unemployment rate in Mexico is under 5% (4.7%). In Canada, if measured by our metrics, is is around 6%, and in the U.S. according to BLS close to 8% (7.8%). Real unemployment/underemployment in the U.S. is closer to 20% by any honest measure.

Those leaving the workforce at the low end aren't hiring new workers and those scaling back their businesses and not starting new ones at the high end aren't hiring anyone new either.

It's a pretty good time, thank you Barack, to secure the border and set up a legal, worker tracking program - while business is down.

Rubio makes far more sense on this than McCarthy, to me. By getting out front on it, setting hard conditions, getting leaders of the other party to accept them, he is potentially putting the shoe on the foot, leaving Obama as the one who hasn't come to the table. Rubio will accept terms on the principles he laid out. I think he won't accept a deal where enforcement isn't in it or when amnesty replaces the long process he describes. OTOH, if Rubio can bring House Republicans along to accept the same tough deal that he and the Senators would and this deal lands on the President's desk, that is leadership and getting things done. If the President just jawbones and demands voting citizenship with no negotiations, debate, proving ground, process or waiting period and loses Rubio, nothing gets done. Sure the President might prefer to keep the issue, but for what? Reelection?? To win the House? But he doesn't for sure win that way, it is a gamble when everyone know his opponents were sitting at the table ready to deal.

The do-nothing idea of 2012 still works if you are a right wing pundit, but not for a major state or national politician. Enforce the law, round 'em up, send them all home. Sounds good and the far right keeps buying your publication. As Rubio said, conservatism means having some tie to reality. We aren't sending them home. They aren't self-deporting except to the extent that our economy sucks and we aren't competing for the entire nation in our elections.

Figure out what is the toughest deal you can get that satisfies all the conditions laid out and get it done. If it ends up with Democrats backing out of real enforcement or a good bill sits on the President's desk vetoed, fine. Take that to the next election.

Message to the rest of the world: Forget obeying America's laws. Do what you want and demand we accomodate you.

Let me make sure I get this right, state level law enforcement can't enforce immigration law because they don't have the constitutional authority, and there are too many illegals to deport, but local level law enforcement can disarm the public despite that pesky 2nd. Amendment.

But why give citizenship instead of a green card? A key variable here is how many family members will get brought in via the new legal status; it's not just 11 million but a multiple thereof.

I think I heard Rubio say back of the line for citizenship and up to a 16 year process. Having some path to citizenship for people we all know are living here permanently I think has to do with the 3/5ths thing in our history, getting the right to vote at some point if America is your permanent home. It has to do with not being able to move forward politically on other things while they hold this over our head and we keep losing national elections. It follows from Tom Tancredo and Mitt Romney not winning the Presidency and it follows from George Bush as President and Gingrich, Hastert, Boehner as Speakers not closing the border. And obviously it follows from electing Democrats. There is some path, some penalty and some contract to be kept in the principles. That should be better than the status quo, having laws we don't respect.

"Didn't it used to be a bad thing to reward criminal behavior? " - Yes.

Maybe you mean jail the Feds, Census workers and LE who didn't report and send them home all these years. Joking, but what do you do when you encounter an illegal? Do you get a team out of Washington to track down the source and extent of it and prosecute to the full extent of the law.? Still joking.

The law breaking that is settled and plea bargained away might be seen in the context that other laws have statutes of limitations 3 years to 7 years except for murder. This is mostly about the fact that the status quo is a losing standoff. The law isn't enforced. The violators don't face a consequence. As Reagan believed, their wanting to come here (when it was the greatest nation in the world) is their fault?

What is the best deal that can put this behind us. Hardline conservatives like myself are not going to win enough elections to ever have the power or guts to send them all home. It isn't happening no matter how tough we talk. Taking no acceptance whatsoever on illegals is costing us the legals. I know they vote other factors, but this is a major standoff affecting legals and illegals. Meanwhile we are two-faced, house them, feed them, educate them, healthcare them all anyway and sue states that interfere with the current lawlessness. At some point in time there isn't home somewhere else to go back to. The undesirable terms in the deal are a cost of getting the the good terms. If border security or any other requirement going forward is a sham and its just an instant voter plan for Democrats, then Rubio, me, WSJ and all the other turncoats hopefully reject a bad deal and won't get fooled again.

Somebody with credibility (Rubio) has stepped forward and tried to hammer out the framework for a very tough deal. Reagan's mistake was that the deal was false, no problem was solved. More recently we've had no new net migration for quite a while now, the entire Pelosi-Obama depression, a chance to catch a breath. McCarthy attacks specifics in the proposal, but there isn't a bill, only a set of principles.

I have two Canadian buddies who live, work and raised their kids here for 20 years. Send them home. If you are Hispanic, you have at least one friend or family member affected every time a Republican says send them all home. There is no gain in saying it when it isn't being done. Obama sent back more than his predecessors, but thosse are felon-type, law enforcement situations.

If we adhered to other principles, like that you can't vote to have someone else pay your living expenses, I wouldn't worry so much about how other people were going to vote.

What BTW is the other solution, seriously? Have Republicans see who is the toughest again in the long primary season and then scratch our heads again the second week of November with still no one sent home?

Good point. We are look for some kind of a bend in the curve, some kind a break in the 100% negative story line being taught to every generation, not total victory. Also as GM backs into, we are looking for some kind of a law we might actually enforce, instead of the farce that is federal law and (lack of) enforcement right now.------------------

I can't remember if Rubio had this note (Federal law) in his principles:

It is an explicit and unambiguous tenet in federal law that those granted entry into the U.S. must be able to support themselves financially.

Currently I think 36% of immigrant families get a check from the federal government, slightly below the U.S. average.(?) For those eventually getting citizenship, that number should be closer to zero structurally, except for the unexpected things they might run into down the road like any other one of us.

If the new citizens were by definition not government dependent and paying in their own fair share, their voting ratios might not be quite as statist as it is predicted right now.

"The Immigration and Nationality Act specifically states: “An alien who…is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.” "

The factions on the left or more mobilized than ever. Surely the illegals are a potential big boon for the Democrat party.

It is interesting how the union leadership has caved for the good of their the other half of their party machine - the democrat party.

Basically cave on immigration throwing all you union members into the garbage can making them have to compete with hungrier more motivated people just to pray you turn these new immigrants into new members thus keeping the union mobsters in charge keeping their power while the rank and file members now get pay cuts just trying to compete.

The Blacks are so in love with the Democrat party machine and so despised of the Republicans that they spite themselves the same way by giving it all away to newer kids on the block.

I guess they are too drunk with new power at the highest levels of a national party they can't see the forest for the trees.

Republicans ought to hit these two themes above very hard.

I say we teach, we preach, we spell it out front and center. So what do the republicans have to offer? A free country where anyone has a chance. Not one controlled by a politburo of cronies, corrupted politicians, smart aleck academics telling all of us what is good for us. Who the hell are they to keep shoving it down our throats.

Humanity is not as a whole a god damn machine. We are people. I don't want to be told what to do by progressives from birth to death.

The Economic Windfall of Immigration Reform From 1990-2010, scientists and engineers admitted by the H-1B visa program added $615 billion to the economy..By GIOVANNI PERI

After months of acrimony, it now appears that immigration reform, and a comprehensive one at that, is within reach. While most of the debates have been about the immediate consequences of any change in policy, the goal should be to promote economic growth over the next 40 years.

Immigration is a powerful engine for bringing skills, workers and ideas into the United States. Yet if history is any guide, this country gets a chance at substantial immigration reform only every four to five decades. Thus the economic gains from "getting the immigration system right" will be large and long-lasting.

Much of the reform debate has centered around granting legal status to undocumented immigrants, conditional upon payment of fees and back taxes. From an economic point of view, this will likely have only a modest impact, especially in the short run.

Most of the undocumented are already working. Probably with legal status they will be able to obtain somewhat higher wages, 5% to 10% higher, most studies say, and consume and spend more. The fees and back-taxes paid to achieve legal status also will be a welcome source of revenue for the government.

The really significant payoff will be when newly legal immigrants are more willing to invest in training, and to move between employers as they participate fully in the economy and feel more certain about their future. The younger among them will be more likely to pursue an education. These investments will increase their human capital, wages, productivity and taxpaying ability, with positive effects on the economy.

Yet the problem of undocumented immigrants is likely to come back unless we find better ways to legally accommodate new immigrants. Much larger economic gains are achievable if we reorganize the immigration system to do that, following three fundamental principles.

The first is simplification. The current visa system is the accumulation of many disconnected provisions. Some rules, set in the past—such as the 7% limit on permanent permits to any nationality—are arbitrary and produce delays, bottlenecks and inefficiencies. There are many different kinds of temporary visas, each with specific provisions, numeric limits, requirements and fees. The disconnect between temporary and permanent visas implies that people who have worked for years and are well integrated in the U.S. have no guarantee of obtaining permanent residence.

A more rational approach would have the government set overall targets and simple rules for temporary and permanent working permits, deciding the balance between permits in "skilled" and "unskilled" jobs. But the government should not micromanage permits, rules and limits in specific occupations. Employers compete to hire immigrants, and they are best suited at selecting the individuals who will be the most productive in the jobs that are needed.

The second important principle is that the number of temporary work visas should respond to the demand for labor. Currently the limited number of these visas is set with no consideration for economic conditions. Their number is rarely revised. In periods of high demand, the economic incentives to bypass the limits and hire undocumented workers are large.

Temporary work visas that are responsive to labor demand would make enforcement of the immigration laws easier. The government should concentrate on checking that the immigrants admitted are law-abiding citizens and that companies follow the rules. In a study for The Hamilton Project written with Pia Orrenius (of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank) and Madeline Zavodny (at Agnes Scott College), we propose that temporary permits to hire immigrants should be made tradable and sold by the government in auctions to employers. Such a "cap and trade" system would ensure efficiency. The auction price of permits would signal the demand for immigrants and guide the upward and downward adjustment of the permit numbers over years.

The third principle governing immigration reform is that scientists, engineers and innovators are the main drivers of productivity and of economic growth. A 2002 study in the American Economic Review by Stanford economist Charles I. Jones found that half of the productivity growth in the U.S. since 1950 was driven by the increase in the number of scientists and engineers doing research and development. Chad Sparber (Colgate University), Kevin Shih (University of California, Davis) and I have found in a study published in January that foreign scientists and engineers brought into this country under the H-1B visa program have contributed to 10%-20% of the yearly productivity growth in the U.S. during the period 1990-2010.

This allowed the GDP per capita to be 4% higher that it would have been without them—that's an aggregate increase of output of $615 billion as of 2010. Our study also found that these immigrants did not hurt but helped wage and employment perspectives of U.S.-born scientists and engineers. More scientists and more innovation in the U.S. mean more labs, universities and companies doing research and creating jobs for Americans too. There is abundant other research showing that foreign scientists and engineers contribute substantially to science, innovation and productivity growth in the U.S., with benefits spreading well beyond the lab and research facility where they work.

President Obama is right when saying, as he did in Las Vegas on Jan. 29, that allowing foreigners trained in science and technology to remain in the country "will create American businesses and American jobs. . . . help us grow our economy . . . and strengthen our middle class." If we can get our immigration system corrected, this will likely be true in the next 40 years as well.

Mr. Peri is a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of "Overhauling the Temporary Work Visa System," a publication of The Hamilton Project, an initiative of the Brookings Institution.

The president suggested he would hold off introducing his own immigration bill as long as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace — until his own immigration bill mysteriously leaked precisely as bipartisan Senate negotiations were proceeding apace.

A naked political maneuver and a blunt warning to Republicans: Finish that immigration deal in Congress, or I’ll propose something I know you can’t accept — and flog the issue mercilessly next year to win back the House.

John McCain responded (correctly) that President Obama was creating a “cudgel” to gain “political advantage in the next election.” Marco Rubio, a chief architect of the Senate bill, called Obama’s alternative dead on arrival.

They doth protest quite a lot. Especially because on the single most important issue — instant amnesty — there is no real difference between the proposals.

Rubio calls it “probationary legal status.” Obama uses the term “lawful prospective immigrant.” But both would instantly legalize the 11 million illegal immigrants living here today. The moment either bill is signed, the 11 million become eligible for legal residence, the right to work and relief from the prospect of deportation.

Their life in the shadows is over, which is what matters to them above all. Call the status probationary or prospective but, in reality, it is permanent. There is no conceivable circumstance (short of criminality) under which the instant legalization would be revoked.

This is bad policy. It repeats the 1986 immigration reform that legalized (the then) 3 million while promising border enforcement — which was never carried out. Which opened the door to today’s 11 million. And to the next 11 million as soon as the ink is dry on this reform.

The better policy would be enforcement first, followed by amnesty. Yes, amnesty. But only when we have ensured that these 11 million constitute the last cohort.

How to ensure that? With three obvious enforcement measures: (a) a universal E-Verify system by which employers must check the legal status of all their hires; (b) an effective system for tracking those who have overstayed their visas; and (c) closure of the southern border, mainly with the kind of triple fence that has proved so successful near San Diego.

If legalization would go into effect only when these conditions are met, there would be overwhelming bipartisan pressure to get enforcement done as quickly as possible.

Regrettably, there appears to be zero political will to undertake this kind of definitive solution. Democrats have little real interest in border enforcement. They see a rising Hispanic population as the key to a permanent Democratic majority. And Republicans are so panicked by last year’s loss of the Hispanic vote by 44 points that they have conceded instant legalization. As in the Rubio proposal.

Hence Rubio’s fallback. He at least makes enforcement the trigger for any normalization beyond legalization. Specifically, enforcement is required before the 11 million can apply for a green card.

A green card is surely a much weaker enforcement incentive than is legalization. But it still is something. Obama’s proposal, on the other hand, obliterates any incentive for enforcement.

Obama makes virtually automatic the eventual acquisition of a green card and citizenship by today’s 11 million. The clock starts on the day the bill is signed: eight years for a green card, five more for citizenship. It doesn’t matter if the border is flooded with millions of new illegal immigrants (anticipating yet the next amnesty). The path to citizenship is irreversible, rendering enforcement irrelevant.

As for Obama’s enforcement measures themselves, they are largely mere gestures: increased funding for border control, more deportation judges, more indeterminate stretching of a system that has already demonstrably failed. (Hence today’s 11 million.) Except for the promise of an eventual universal E-Verify system, it is nothing but the appearance of motion.

And remember: Non-implementation of any of this has no effect on the path to full citizenship anyway. The Rubio proposal at least creates some pressure for real enforcement because green-card acquisition does not take place until the country finally verifies that its borders are under its control. True, a far weaker incentive than requiring enforcement before legalization. But that fight appears to be totally lost.

In the end, the only remaining vessel for enforcement is the Rubio proposal. It is deeply flawed and highly imperfect. But given that the Obama alternative effectively signs away America’s right to decide who enters the country, the choice between the two proposals on the table today is straightforward.

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally would not gain green cards under a bipartisan Senate bill until law-enforcement officials are monitoring the entire southern border and stopping 90% of people crossing illegally in certain areas, according to people familiar with the plan.

The border-security proposal, part of a broader immigration bill being written by eight senators, sets several goals that would have to be met before any of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally could apply for permanent legal residency, also known as a green card, according to the people familiar with the Senate talks. Meeting all the goals is expected to take 10 years.

In a major change for businesses, all employers would be required after a five-year phase-in period to use the government's E-Verify system, which screens for illegal workers. E-Verify now is largely voluntary, though some states require it. Some 409,000 employers had enrolled in the program as of last year, the federal government says, a tiny fraction of the estimated six million private U.S. employers, many of which have only a handful of employees.

Along the U.S.-Mexican border, 100% of the border would have to be under surveillance, and law enforcement would have to catch 90% of those who cross the border illegally at "high risk" sections—a term that people following the Senate talks did not define. In 2010, the Department of Homeland Security reported that only 44% of the border was under operational control, meaning officials had the ability to detect and block illegal activity there.

In addition, the government would have to create an electronic system to monitor everyone who exits from the U.S. through airports or seaports, in an attempt to identify people overstaying their visas. People who overstay visas account for a large share of illegal immigrants, as much as 40% by some estimates.

Once all of those measures are met, immigrants could begin qualifying for green cards. In the meantime, the legislation would grant probationary status to illegal immigrants who passed a criminal-background check, paid a fine and met other conditions. The legislation, which would also set special rules for agricultural workers, is not fully drafted and has not yet been released publicly.

Setting tougher border-security measures as a prerequisite to offering legal status to illegal immigrants could ease the way for many lawmakers, particularly Republicans, to support the immigration-law overhaul. Many Republicans have said the border must be secure before they would consider any change in the status of illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, advocates for immigrants and some Democrats worry that stringent border-security requirements would create an indefinite delay for illegal immigrants seeking legal status. Frank Sharry, executive director of the group America's Voice, said the Senate plan seemed poised to include the "toughest border-security requirements ever."

"It raises the question of whether it's actually achievable, and whether it will end up thwarting the path to citizenship for 11 million people," he said. "I think there will be a lot of heartburn when the bill is released."

The measures laid out in the Senate plan are similar to a border-security bill unveiled Tuesday by Sen. John Cornyn and House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, both Texas Republicans.

How to determine whether the border is secure is a contentious issue in the debate over overhauling the nation's immigration laws. President Barack Obama and other Democrats have argued that border security has already improved, but the Senate plan would push the Department of Homeland Security to go further.

Republicans say they want to prevent another wave of immigrants from entering the U.S. illegally. Many in the GOP cite a 1986 immigration law legalizing millions without, they say, adequately improving border security.

Mr. Cornyn, who has been skeptical of immigration-overhaul efforts, said he would be pleased if the eight senators writing the new legislation adopted security measures similar to ones he put forward. "I would be favorably impressed if they embraced this," Mr. Cornyn said. But his bill could also offer an alternative to GOP lawmakers who want to sign on to a measure boosting border security without offering legal status to illegal immigrants.

How tough the security measures prove to be will depend on the details of the legislation. Lawmakers will have to define, for instance, "high-risk" areas subject to the 90% apprehension requirement. The border-security targets will also depend on how lawmakers define requirements for surveillance, also known as border "awareness."

The standards could change over time or prove to be subjective. The Department of Homeland Security would be charged with collecting the data.

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Barbed wire lines the top of the border fence at the San Ysidro port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego..The 90% apprehension rate, technically referred to as the effectiveness rate, includes people who turned back after entering the U.S., as well as people detained. The Border Patrol estimates the total number of illegal crossings based on agent sightings, camera monitoring and referrals from other credible sources.

It is hard to know if apprehension rates are tallied accurately, said Thad Bingel, partner at Command Consulting Group and a former Customs and Border Protection official. "You can detect something and not know for certain if it turned back or if it got past you. That's what makes it a really tough challenge." He said that even if the U.S. has full surveillance and control of the border one day, that may not hold true a month later.

"The bad guys are sophisticated, too," he said. "You may one day have 100% awareness, and then they'll figure out where your holes might be."

In recent years, illegal border crossings have fallen as a result of the tepid U.S. economy, stronger border enforcement and other factors, several studies have found. The federal Government Accountability Office said apprehensions fell in fiscal 2011, mirroring a decrease in estimated illegal entries.

The Senate plan lays out three steps aimed at meeting the security goals, people familiar with the proposal said. Homeland Security officials would be required to report to Congress within six months about what resources and technology are necessary to meet the 90% apprehension rate and where additional border fencing should be installed. After that report, the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. would become eligible for provisional legal status.

If border-security targets weren't met after five years, a commission of border-state officials—potentially governors or attorneys general—would make recommendations to meet the 90% apprehension goal. The legislation designates money to implement the commission's recommendations.

Illegal immigrants would be able to apply for green cards after 10 years only if the border-security targets had been met and the visa exit and full E-Verify systems have been implemented, according to the two people familiar with the plan.

"Twenty years could pass by, and if there's no E-Verify, not one person is going to get their green card," said one of the people familiar with the plan.

The price tag for the additional security measures is unclear, but it is likely to be costly. The U.S. government spent $18 billion in fiscal 2012 on federal immigration enforcement, more than all the other main federal law-enforcement agencies combined, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

Senators are hoping to offset some security costs with additional revenue from fines and fees.

"We do not intend to have the proposals that we are enacting be additional costs to the taxpayers of America," said Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), a member of the Senate group working on immigration.

Soon things will heat up over immigration again. Two comments on writing an acceptable bill:

1) Borders secured first, everyone on the right says, but how will we measure that? It has been suggested that success will be when 90% of illegal crossings are stopped. In this day of known terrorists attempting to carry out planned missions, stopping the amateurs from crossing is not good enough. Stopping 90% still means hundreds of thousands are entering.

2) Not mentioned yet to my knowledge (except on the forum) is this concept in immigration law: Federal law requires that those granted entry into the U.S. must be able to support themselves financially. The Immigration and Nationality Act specifically states: “An alien who…is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.” How about if we make sure we honor this tradition in law in any new law!

Republican members of the Gang of Eight know they’ll have a tough time selling comprehensive immigration reform to a significant number of conservatives. Of course some in the GOP are still panicked by last November’s election results and will be inclined to sign on to almost any deal. But many of the more conservative Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill will have to be convinced that the Gang’s proposal is an acceptable way to go. It won’t be easy.

Starting this week, with the release of the bill, the Gang will launch an extensive public information campaign — lots of press releases, frequently asked questions, and fact sheets specifically addressing the concerns about reform that conservatives have raised in recent months.

The short version of their case: The Gang proposal will be tough, tough, tough; it will be based on stringent requirements that security measures be in place before many of its provisions take effect; it will avoid the moral danger of rewarding those who entered the country illegally; and it will take care to protect the U.S. economy. And then there will be a final, mostly whispered, argument: If Congress doesn’t pass the Gang bill, Barack Obama might unilaterally legalize the millions of illegal immigrants in the country today in an adult version of his Dream Act decree, doing so without securing the border in an act that would be impossible for a future president to reverse.Sign Up for the Byron York newsletter!

In sum, what the Gang is planning is a sales job followed by a nightmare scenario.

First the toughness. The bill will be based on a three-part enforcement scheme. First is a universal E-Verify system, which means that every business in America, even those that have one, two, or three employees, will be required to comply with the federal E-Verify law. Every person hired in every business will have to produce either a passport or a driver’s license from a state that requires proof of citizenship for a driver’s license.

Second is an entry and exit system at all airports and seaports that will track visa holders to ensure that they do not overstay their allotted time in the country.

Third is border security, which the Gang will define as 100 percent “situational awareness” — that is, surveillance of the entire border — plus the ability to catch 90 percent of the people who try to cross it illegally.

The GOP Gang members know full well that the federal government has promised all those measures and more over the years, and the border is still not secure and businesses still hire illegal immigrants. For example, Congress has passed multiple laws requiring entry-exit systems similar to what the Gang will propose, and the system has never been built. So Gang members know that conservatives, at least, will be skeptical.

The answer the Gang hopes will reassure those skeptics is the concept of triggers. They’ve set up three points at which the bill’s requirements will have to be met before the process can continue.

The first, and by far the weakest, trigger is for the legalization of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally. In addition to requiring that immigrants pass a background check, be fingerprinted, pay taxes and a fine (which will be in the thousands of dollars), and prove they have been in the U.S. continuously at least since December 2011, the Gang bill will require that the Department of Homeland Security issue a “notice of commencement” confirming that it has prepared a plan for border security, including fencing and surveillance, that will meet the 100/90 percent requirements. In addition, the Department will have to confirm that it has the funding to begin implementing the plan. When that notice is made, then an illegal immigrant who has fulfilled the other requirements becomes what the bureaucracy will refer to as an RPI — a Restricted Provisional Immigrant.

Trigger number two will come five years after Homeland Security’s notice of commencement. If the Department has not met the 100/90 percent requirement by then, the border commission that was created in the original bill — made up of the governors and attorneys general of the four states bordering Mexico — will no longer be simply an advisory panel but will become a policy-making panel, charged with creating and implementing a border security plan that must meet the 100/90 percent requirement. The commission will have five more years to get the job done. How a commission of governors and state officials can be given the authority that constitutionally belongs to the Congress and the executive branch is not entirely clear, but that is what the bill will call for.

Once the 100/90 percent requirement is met, however it is done, then the Restricted Provisional Immigrants will be within sight, although a long sight, of a path to citizenship. The Gang plan calls for RPI status to last six years. After those six years, the RPI must re-apply for the same status, for an additional four years. To have his RPI status renewed, he must pay an application fee and an additional fine, on top of the one he paid six years earlier when he first became an RPI. He cannot have been convicted of any crime during those six years, or he will no longer be ineligible. And he will have to prove that he has been gainfully employed during those six years, earning at least 125 percent of the federal poverty level. (The figure will be higher for RPI’s with families to support.)

After an initial six-year term, and then four more years, the immigrant will have been in RPI status for ten years. That is when the final trigger comes in. After that decade-long period, the Gang plan will say, if E-Verify has been fully implemented, and if an entry-exit system has been fully implemented, and if the border security plan has been implemented, then the RPI will be eligible to apply — not receive, but just to apply — for a green card. The immigrant won’t be required to do so; he can remain an RPI for as long as he likes at that point. But if he does apply for a green card, then he will face another multi-year wait for eventual citizenship. The Gang stresses that green cards will be given out on a staggered basis, not all at one time, so no more than, say, two million immigrants will receive them in any single year. (That number is still under negotiation.) If any key part of the security requirements remain undone, the Gang says, then there will be no green cards.

In all, Gang members estimate the entire process, from illegal immigrant to citizen, could take at least 18, and as many as 22, years. At the same time, the Gang hopes to have wiped out the backlog of people waiting to enter the United States legally. Gang members want the RPI process to be slow in part to make sure that anyone who applied legally to enter the U.S. at roughly the same time as the new reform went into effect would be virtually guaranteed of receiving a green card before anyone who came here illegally.

During the long waiting period, the Gang stresses, the RPI will receive no need-based federal benefits, and specifically, no Obamacare coverage. Since Congress specifically made Obamacare available to anyone who is in the country legally — not just citizens — the Gang believes it must repeal that portion of the Affordable Care Act in order to exempt newly-legalized immigrants with RPI status. To do otherwise — to make the formerly illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare — would bust the federal budget, the Gang says.

As complicated as all that is, there is still much, much more to the Gang proposal; immigration reform is an enormously complex subject. But Gang members will argue that something has to be done, given the fact that so many illegal immigrants are already in the country. The Gang’s goal was to come up with a plan that deals with those illegal immigrants while not encouraging further immigration or punishing those who are trying to come here legally.

Even if lawmakers agreed with the proposals, or amended them to their liking, there will remain the fundamental, unavoidable question of whether the Obama administration, or the next presidential administration, will enforce the law. Gang members will try to convince skeptics that the provisions are iron-clad. The skeptics will likely remain skeptical. And that’s before considering the onslaught of lawsuits that pro-immigration activist groups will file to try to undo key provisions of the law.

But GOP gang members will have one final argument, one they will most likely use privately with fellow Republicans. If the Gang plan goes down in defeat, the argument goes, Barack Obama will be a lame-duck president who has promised key Democratic constituencies that he will take action on immigration reform. He has already used his executive power to unilaterally enact a version of the Dream Act. If Congress denies him immigration reform, according to the argument, he will essentially do for the entire illegal immigrant population what the Dream Act did for young illegal immigrants: legalize them by declining to enforce current law. With the stroke of Obama’s pen, millions of illegal immigrants will become legal.

And it could all happen, the Gang members will argue, without any of the strict enforcement measures — E-Verify, entry-exit, border security and more — that are in the Gang bill. And Obama’s unilateral legalization would be virtually impossible for a future president, Republican or Democrat, to reverse.

In other words, after all the provisions and requirements and triggers, the ultimate Gang argument to conservatives and Republicans will be: Pass our bill, or face utter disaster.

I'd just like to point out that there is a path to citizenship already in existence. Illegal aliens are free to return home and apply to legitimately return and pursue naturalization in compliance with federal law.

One point made against 'do something', a.k.a. 'comprehensive reform', is that surrender on this won't win Republicans any votes. This is true. But it would potentially begin to allow them to compete for Hispanic votes based on other issues.

To GM's very valid point, some of the blame for illegal immigration goes to the U.S. for having unenforced laws. We even have a federal government that prevents states from enforcing these laws.

On the positive side, I will be amazed if all these people will be pay taxes and but not be eligible to receive any federal benefits for more than a decade. If true, that alone would put their votes on fiscal matters in play.

Beware of the slippery slope legislative strategy though. After a tough, tough, tough bill is passed, the panderers will still say how unfair it is that all these now-legal residents can't vote or receive benefits and will push for more 'reform'. I don't think you can protect against that in a bill. It is extremely hard to negotiate with weasels.

A bipartisan group of eight leading U.S. senators on Wednesday officially filed the most comprehensive immigration reform bill since 1990, opening the door for the United States to address an issue that will help to shape the country's economic and demographic future. The bill links the issue of border security with that of immigration and will require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to significantly ramp up its monitoring of the U.S. border over the next 10 years. It would make it possible for illegal immigrants currently in the country to seek legal residency and eventually citizenship. Finally, and perhaps most important, the bill would shift the composition of the inflow of legal immigrants, increasing quotas for highly skilled individuals and constraining the number of visas available to people whose family members are U.S. citizens.

The history of U.S. immigration policy is necessarily long and controversial. Not only is the United States the biggest economy in the world, it is also the largest recipient of immigrants. Until the middle of the 20th century, Europeans accounted for the majority of emigrants to the United States. Since that time, immigrants from the rest of the Americas -- in particular from Mexico and Central America -- have come to form the largest demographic in illegal and legal immigration, followed by Chinese and Indian immigrants.

Immigration law has been used to control the legal entry of people based on a wide range of factors. These include placing quotas on nationalities and forbidding the entry of polygamists and political extremists. At the same time, U.S. immigration law has been used to encourage the entry of people with specific skill sets. These efforts include the Immigration Nurses Relief Act of 1989, which granted permanent residency to foreign-born nurses during a national nurse shortage in the United States. In 1942 the United States negotiated an agreement with Mexico during an agricultural labor shortage. This agreement, known as the Bracero program, allowed millions of Mexican workers to enter the United States between the time the program was implemented and when it ended in 1964. The program opened the door for significant Mexican migration based on family reunification. What appears to be a more contemporary version of that program -- a temporary worker permit specifically designed to integrate migrant agricultural workers -- was included in the bill introduced Wednesday.

Though each new wave of immigration brings with it political and social controversy, the United States' ability to integrate new populations gives it a distinct advantage over many other developed countries. In the first place, Latin American immigrant populations tend to have higher fertility rates than the national average. This allows the United States to maintain a population large enough to drive the world’s largest economy -- in stark comparison with Europe, which is set to experience a notable aging and shrinking of its population. Legal immigrants contribute to the country’s tax base. Even illegal immigrants help fill out and stabilize the labor market.

Immigration reform could also contribute to another U.S. advantage, namely its ability to attract talented and innovative individuals. Many students from around the world come to study in the United States, but legal restrictions prevent them from staying and working in the country. The proposed system appears designed to help keep more highly educated foreigners in the United States, a country that depends on technological innovation to create high-skilled, high-value jobs. The generation and protection of intellectual property is a strategic national objective amid rising international competition, and if the proposed law successfully increases high-skilled labor immigration, it will contribute significantly to U.S. competitiveness by attracting skilled workers and thinkers from around the world.

The international impact of this proposal will be felt most keenly in Mexico, where U.S. President Barack Obama is set to visit in May. Although immigration from Mexico has slowed in the wake of the financial crisis, Mexicans make up about two-thirds of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. The Mexican government has long made it a priority to find a way to normalize immigrant status. It also has an interest in encouraging population flows that generate billions of dollars worth of remittances annually to Mexico.

The current bill highlights the tight relationship between the immigration issue and the challenge of border security. In recent years, violence in Mexico has worried U.S. policymakers, and although the border will never be sealed, efforts to strengthen border enforcement address land migration from Mexico. For this effort, the United States will have to continue to work closely with the Mexican government. The fact that immigration reform is attached to the new border security initiative will sweeten the deal for Mexico during negotiations with the United States.

Ultimately, no single immigration bill will end the issues tied to immigration in the United States. But each reform makes strategic changes to the body of immigration law -- changes that are tailored to the global circumstances of the times. For the United States, the big question now is about global competitiveness, and any reform to immigration will seek to address that question..

My fear is that the US govt cannot keep its word, not just on the border security side. Once proponents get what they want from this bill, why wouldn't they open the issue again and demand basic 'human rights', like free health care, food and voting now? Will a court rule on these deprived 'rights' of the recently legalized with 'heightened scrutiny'. Will we again hear that anyone opposed shortening the wait, paying out benefits or giving instant voting privileges is a bigot, xenophobe, hater.

On the plus side according to Rubio today, working, paying taxes, and not receiving federal benefits through the whole process is a requirement. If true, that is a pretty good applicant group! Not every illegal is going to sign up for that.

Terrorism this week reminds us that 90% effective border security is not good enough. It is time to know who is coming and going.

Immigration Reform Hits the SenateApril 19, 2013 But First, Breaking News Out of BostonTwo immigration issues are top of the fold this week.First, two young Chechen immigrants bombed the Boston Marathon Monday. Due to the outstanding work of both the FBI and Massachusetts law enforcement, those perpetrators were identified and one apprehended.It's no small irony that on this Patriots' Day, the Massachusetts governor has asked the entire city of Boston to "shelter in place" while searching for the remaining suspect -- an unprecedented action for any urban center conducting a manhunt.The family of these perpetrators were Chechen Muslims, who came to the United States by way of Kyrgyzstan. It is likely that they acted alone, two disenfranchised young immigrants, but their belief system and tactics have all the DNA markers of Islamic fanaticism. As you recall, it was Chechen Islamists who stormed a school in Beslan, Russia, murdering more than 300 people, half of them children. And this is the same fanaticism that motivated other attacks against Americans since 9/11, particularly the bloodiest assault by Islamist Nidal Malik Hasan, who murdered 14 and wounded 29 others at Ft. Hood, while yelling "Allahu Akbar!" The Obama administration has yet to label that incident as anything other than "workplace violence."We will not join the chorus of speculators about this attack or its motives. The facts will become clear in the coming weeks. But one thing is clear: The disgraceful media talkinghead coverage of this attack, which Mark Alexander covered yesterday in "The Good, Bad and Ugly."On to the most pressing immigration issue today, dealing with illegal immigrants -- some of whom, by the way, form the bedrock of urban Hispanic gangs who murder more people in a week than all terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, combined.Immigration Reform Hits the Senate"To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim." --James Wilson

Members of the 'Gang of Eight' The Senate's immigration reform committee -- the "Gang of Eight," so-called because of its bipartisan composition of four Republican and four Democrat senators -- will hold hearings today and Monday over its proposal to reform U.S. immigration law. At stake is no less than the fate of U.S. border security and the legal disposition of millions of undocumented Democrats residing in the U.S. The primary thing to remember is that Democrats' objective is to co-opt Hispanics, just like they've done with blacks, all in service of their agenda to grow the State.The 850-page bill was released at 2:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, providing all of two days for review before debate begins. That's at least better than the review offered to the nation under ObamaCare -- no hearings, no debate and passage under cover of night. Then again, we're in the "new era of openness," so perhaps we judge too harshly. Why the rush? For starters, those who favor the bill know that the faster it's pushed through, the less time there is to learn more about its provisions or to rally opposition.The bill has three main parts: 1) a so-called "pathway to citizenship" for illegals currently domiciled in the U.S. -- 11-20 million people, depending on who's doing the counting; 2) "improved" border security, complete with protective legislative "triggers" to ensure that goal is met; and 3) changes to immigration rules to grant a more favorable status to skilled workers, as opposed to the current system based on allowing relatives of existing families entrance, which values family ties over economic productivity. The first provision is the most controversial.Though the bill does not contain the phrase "pathway to citizenship," the term lies at the heart of the proposed law. In exchange for promises of better border security, tighter control, better status-monitoring, and non-compliance- and retro-penalties, the current population illegally residing in the U.S. will be allowed to remain legally with the prospect of future citizenship. The legislation also imposes E-Verify on all employers. Each of these provisions, according to the bill, must occur before the "pathway" becomes operative.After payment of a $500 penalty and any back-taxes owed, and provided they can show they haven't been convicted of a serious crime within the U.S., formerly illegal immigrants gain "probationary" (or "provisional") legal status after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) begins to implement: a) 100 percent border surveillance capability; and b) 90 percent enforcement capability (i.e., the ability to detain nine out of 10 of those illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border). DHS would have six months to propose a plan to accomplish these tasks, and then have five years following that to meet those goals. If the goals are not met during that time, a commission will mandate additional policies DHS must follow to ensure compliance.Additionally, probationary residents must pass a background check and show proof of gainful employment. Moreover, they will not receive any federal benefits -- food stamps, welfare, ObamaCare, Social Security, etc. -- and they must renew their status periodically. After 10 years in this status, they could apply for a "green card," and up to an additional three years after that, become a U.S. citizen.Bottom line: There's not much to like about this bill. First, we don't like its "omnibus" nature. Further, we don't like the fact that 11-20 million aliens living in America receive an essentially free pass on legal accountability for their wrongful acts. We also don't trust the same federal government that has been both unable and also unwilling to enforce existing immigration law to enforce the "reformed" law. Finally, we don't like the announcement that the Gang of Eight plans to block any amendments to the bill, attempting to curtail the deliberative process so that the bill has a better chance of passing. All of these issues leave us uneasy, at best, with the prospects for the long-term success of this legislation.That said, there are worse solutions than that proposed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and the Gang of Eight. We believe Rubio is trying to remain true to conservative principles while also recognizing the reality that the Demo-gogues control the Senate. However, we also heartily agree with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who warns that we will be left with merely the promise of better border security tomorrow for what amounts to a blanket pass to those who are violating our laws. In other words, we're giving up something valuable and might get nothing in return.In the end, the nation seems to be left with a Hobson's Choice. One choice involves attempting an immigration fix that no one is happy with, including a "gladly-pay-you-tomorrow-for-a-hamburger-today" shot at securing the borders, and a not-quite-amnesty/not-quite-not-amnesty program for current illegal immigrants. The other choice is an overwhelmingly unsatisfying status quo: Calling it a day and leaving things as they are, with the current laws on the books unenforced, a virtual sieve of a border, and federal benefits dished out to illegal aliens right and left. Either choice reeks.

On Cross-Examination"I think it's incumbent on Republicans, Democrats, and every one of us to ask what is going to happen to working Americans whose wages have been falling since 2000, who are unemployed at a very high rate. [The Senate bill] will impact them adversely. We have to ask how the new flow of workers is going to maybe double the current flow of legal workers in the future, in addition to those who will be legalized, [which is] 11 million. The public interest is to figure out how we can deal with the crisis we face, how we can have a lawful system that serves the national interest without hammering ... the average low-income worker, the African-American and Hispanic worker that's here. It's logical that if you bring in a massive supply of low-wage workers, you're going to pull the workers down." --Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

The administration has approved 99.5 percent of applications of those who have applied for legal status under President Obama’s nondeportation policy for young adults, granting legal status to more than 250,000 formerly illegal immigrants.

Officials said they expect the approval rate to drop as more cases make their way through the system, as it takes longer to deny an application than to approve it. Indeed, the approval rate already has dropped from 99.8 percent just a month ago.

But the high rate leaves others wondering whether the administration is doing all it can to weed out fraud or potentially dangerous illegal immigrants in DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, as it’s formally known.

“You really have to wonder who they’re giving deferred action to, and what kind of risk they represent to us,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies. “The screening process is much less for DACA than it would be for a green card, and so it’s all that much more susceptible to fraud.”

DACA is seen by many as a test-run should Congress pass a broad legalization for most of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

That means the pressure is on Homeland Security to get it right, and officials say they are taking steps to combat fraud, including warning that bogus applicants will be prosecuted and deported.

Mr. Obama created the program last summer to try to help illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.

His policy allows them to remain and work in the U.S. on tentative legal status with no fear of deportation, though they do not have a direct path to citizenship. That path could come, though, under the immigration bill senators are beginning to debate, which would give DACA-approved immigrants a speedier chance at citizenship.

On Monday, one of those legalized under DACA pleaded with Congress to give her that chance.

“Legalizing people like me, the 11 million of us, will make the United States stronger and will bring about significant economic gains,” said Gabriel Pacheco, who was brought to the U.S. from Ecuador at age 8 by her parents. “Doing nothing is no longer acceptable.”

Her situation captures the complexities of American immigration: One of her sisters is about to earn citizenship as the wife of a U.S. citizen, with two citizen children; another sister is here illegally and didn’t qualify for DACA because she was too old; and her younger brother, 27, who owns a carwashing business, did qualify. Ms. Pacheco’s husband, meanwhile, is a Venezuelan who has lived in the U.S. for 26 years and earned his green card last year after an 18-year wait.

Mr. Obama announced the DACA policy in June, and the government began taking applications in August.

It was a galvanizing moment for immigrant rights advocates, and Hispanic voters in particular rewarded the president by voting for his re-election in overwhelming numbers.

The policy applies to illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before age 16 and who were not yet 31 when the program was announced.

Illegal immigrants with serious criminal records aren’t supposed to qualify. To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from high school or earned an equivalency degree or served in the military.

Through the first 7 months of the program, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved 268,316 illegal immigrants for tentative legal status, while denying just 1,377 applications.

A Homeland Security official said the denials will tick up as time passes. Those whom the department plans to reject are given time to submit more evidence or appeal their denial, while approvals go through immediately.

For example, while USCIS approved 29,793 applications in the first six weeks of the program, it denied just six applications, or one out of every 5,000. But in March, the agency approved about 98.2 percent, meaning it denied nine out of every 500 applications.

“USCIS has issued some denials but expects denial rates to increase once requests for evidence and notice of intent to deny responses are received and reviewed by USCIS,” a Homeland Security official said.

Louis “Don” Crocetti Jr., who retired in 2011 after serving as the head of the USCIS fraud branch, also predicted his old agency’s denial rate will rise because of how it handles cases.

“It’s not uncommon, in fact it is more common than not, that the questionable cases are put on the back end in order to [make sure] the more deserving candidates get the benefit,” said Mr. Crocetti, who now runs the Immigration Integrity Group, a consultancy.

Cesar Vargas, one of those who has gained legal status under DACA and is executive political director of DRM Action Coalition, said the high approval rate makes sense given who is in this pool of immigrants.

“I am not surprised, just as most Americans and senators should not be not surprised, since many of the DACA applicants who applied were youth and students who were committed to their school and work,” Mr. Vargas said. “Dreamers have been in the U.S. for most of our lives such that it was not as difficult to put the paperwork proving our presence and moral character.”

Through the end of March, the department had received 472,004 completed applications and had settled nearly 270,000 of them. Mr. Crocetti said DACA is a chance for the administration to test its screening process as it prepares for the possibility of a broad legalization for all 11 million illegal immigrants now in the U.S.

“We are in a post-9/11 world, as most recently evinced by the events in Boston,” he said. “This is a pivotal time that we have to get this right. We have to screen these people accurately, and we really have to know what are the key indicators to look for when these people file.”

Unlike the 1986 amnesty, when every applicant was interviewed in person and there still was double-digit fraud Mr. Crocetti said that’s not likely to be an option this time around. But he said technology has become so advanced that the agency can come up with analytical tools that can predict applications most likely to be fraudulent. Ms. Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors a crackdown on immigration, said that in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings that should be a priority for any legalization program, including the ongoing DACA system.

“That’s very concerning in light of the most recent reminder namely this terror attack in Boston, near where I live,” she said, “that we simply are not taking enough care in screening the people we admit for legal status whether it’s this kind of deferred action or a green card or an asylum application.”

I favored the attempt to put together a comprehensive bill that would meet all of the stated criteria. I oppose this one. I also oppose the mudslinging going on between conservatives on both sides of this.

The challenge for Rubio in negotiations was to come out with a bill so clean and so tough that it would pass the Republican House, not just be good enough for him or to get through the Democratic Senate. Anything short of that just leaves a divisive political issue on the table for 2014 campaign demagoguery.

My first objection is that this bill is loaded up with exceptions and special giveaways for votes like Obamacare. They wrote a bill so long that it looks like the sponsors haven't read it all, then start right in unprepared with press appearances and rushed hearings. Secondly, the border security enforcement mechanism looks to be a farce. If they didn't mind this bill reaching 900 pages, they had the space to spell out what a sealed, staffed and controlled border will look like and they didn't. The commission mechanism is not a solution. Perhaps this could be fixed in the amendment process but not when all the proponents think they already have it right.

Yes it looks like Rubio was taken to the cleaners. Still I think one can attack the bill without throwing the tea party Senator from Florida under the bus. He got some toughness on pathway into the bill that I like. He got some funding for border security, but I don't see how out-year funding is not contingent on appropriations by out-year congresses. Again the mess reminds me of Obamacare. I like that the pathway is only open to people who can pay their own way and not rely on government assistance. Again, I don't know where in the bill that is guaranteed. ---------------

Most of the criticism of this bill comes from people who oppose all bills that include any "pathway". That is not a politically helpful position either IMHO unless you think mass deportation is realistic or the status quo is acceptable.

And here in its entirety is the testimony of the other opponent invited, Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Stuidies:

There may be circumstances under which an amnesty for certain illegal aliens would make sense. Given the pervasive and deliberate non-enforcement of the immigration laws for so many years, and the resulting large population of illegal aliens, one could make a case for clearing the decks, as it were, and making a fresh start. This would be a distasteful proposition, to be sure, given that virtually all illegal aliens are guilty of multiple felonies, among them identity theft, document fraud, tax evasion, and perjury. Nonetheless, for practical reasons conferring legal status on established, non-violent illegal aliens may well, at some point, be a policy option worth discussing.

But only after the problem that allowed the mass settlement of illegal aliens has been addressed.

S 744 takes the opposite approach. It legalizes the illegal population before the necessary tools are in place to avoid the development of yet another large illegal population. As such, it paves the way for yet more demands for amnesty a decade or so in the future, as those who entered in, say 2015, are so well-established by 2023 that we will be told that we have to permit them to stay as well.

What’s more, the legalization provisions of the bill make widespread fraud very likely.

Much has been made of the so-called triggers in Sec. 3 that would permit the Registered Provisional Immigrants (RPI) to receive permanent residence. Tying the green card to achievement of these benchmarks – which include an employment authorization system for all employers, biographical exit tracking at airports and seaports, and substantial completion of two border strategies – is presented as a guarantee that this scenario of serial amnesties would not happen. Unfortunately, those triggers are, in a very real sense, beside the point.

The other triggers mentioned in Sec. 3 – those allowing the granting of the initial RPI status – are the submission by the Department of Homeland security of two plans: A “Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy” and a “Southern Border Fencing Strategy”. Since similar plans have been frequently offered over the years, this isn’t much of a hurdle.

And yet it’s the only hurdle that matters because receipt of Registered Provisional Immigrant status is the amnesty – that is to say, it represents the transformation of the illegal alien into a person who is lawfully admitted to the United States.

RPI status brings with it work authorization, a legitimate Social Security account, driver’s license, travel documents – in effect, Green Card Lite. It is only the upgrade of this status to that of lawful permanent resident – Green Card Premium, if you will – that is on hold until the enforcement benchmarks are satisfied. But the political and bureaucratic incentives to press for the achievement of those enforcement benchmarks are blunted by the fact that the amnesty has already happened. With people “out of the shadows” and no longer “undocumented”, the urgency to meet enforcement deadlines would evaporate, especially in the face of determined opposition to enforcement by business and civil liberties groups.

To use an analogy, if you’re flying to the West Coast, it doesn’t ultimately matter whether you’re in coach or first class – your destination is the same. By the same token, whether or not the beneficiary of the RPI amnesty is upgraded to a green card, the destination is the same – the ability to live and work in the United States. An upgrade from coach to first class may actually be more consequential than the upgrade from RPI to permanent residence; while the former results in wider seats and free drinks, all a green card offers that RPI status does not is the right to apply for citizenship, something most recipients of green cards from the IRCA amnesty had not done a quarter century after the enactment of the law.

And many of those who receive the RPI amnesty are likely to do so fraudulently. Reading Sec. 2101 harkens back to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act’s Special Agricultural Worker program, which the New York Times called “one of the most extensive immigration frauds ever perpetrated against the United States Government”. The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General described it this way:

To be eligible for adjustment of status under the SAW provisions, the applicant had to prove with documentation that he or she had worked in an agricultural enterprise in the United States for 90 days in each calendar year from 1984 through 1986, or for 90 days between May 1985 and May 1986. The evidence of having engaged in such work, INS employees believed, was often forged and sold to undocumented individuals seeking U.S. residency. Given the crush of applications under the program and the relative fewer investigative resources, INS approved applications absent explicit proof that they were in fact fraudulent.

When Sec. 2101 of S 744 is considered in this light, the sources of fraud become apparent:

• If IRCA created a “crush” of applications when only 3 million people applied, what should we call the workload that DHS will face when triple the number of people – at least – apply for the RPI amnesty? The administrative capacity does not exist to handle this properly, which all but guarantees that most applications will be rubber-stamped by overwhelmed DHS staff.

• The bill says DHS “may interview”, not “shall interview”, applicants for the RPI amnesty. Given the aforementioned crush, it is unlikely many will be interviewed. In fact, the current DACA amnesty (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) is a good model for how the administration would manage S 744′s amnesty provisions. DACA processing is almost entirely paper-based, with few interviews, resulting in the approval of 99.5 percent of applications. And yet the number of cases so far decided amounts to perhaps one-fiftieth the number likely to apply for the RPI amnesty.

• S 744 allows affidavits by non-relatives regarding the work or education history of RPI amnesty applicants. Fraudulent affidavits were common among IRCA applicants, with some small farmers claiming to have employed hundreds of illegal-alien farmworkers. The temptation to fraud will be great in any program giving away something as valuable as the RPI amnesty, but the ability to investigate fraudulent affidavits will be extremely limited given the millions of applicants. And there is no realistic level of fees or penalties that could raise enough money to hire enough staff to follow up on questionable affidavits. They will be approved, as in the 1980s, absent specific proof that they’re fraudulent.￼• The current bill also contains a confidentiality clause, prohibiting the use of any information provided by illegal alien applicants for other purposes. This means illegal aliens with little likelihood of approval are free to apply and try their luck, knowing that there’s no downside, and a significant upside.

• As a corollary to this, there is no requirement that rejected applicants be immediately taken into custody and deported. In fact, the bill specifically says that failure to qualify does not require DHS to commence removal proceedings. Again, unqualified applicants would have nothing to lose in applying, in the hope that they could fall through the cracks and get approved, something certain to happen to a significant number of people.

• As an additional incentive to fraudulent applicants, S 744 provides de facto work authorization to those merely applying for the RPI amnesty, pending the adjudication of the application. Application alone also forestalls removal, making a frivolous application an attractive option for illegal aliens with no chance at amnesty.

We don’t have to speculate about the consequences of such widespread fraud. Mahmoud “The Red” Abouhalima was an Egyptian illegal alien driving a cab in New York when he fraudulently – and successfully – applied for amnesty as a farmworker. This legal status allowed him to travel to Afghanistan for terrorist training, which he put to use in the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.

A co-conspirator, Mohammed Salameh, also applied for the 1986 amnesty but was, remarkably, turned down. But since that amnesty, like the one in S 744, did not mandate the removal of failed applicants, Salameh was able to remain and assist in the 1993 bombing.

S 744 thus places amnesty before enforcement, and ensures an amnesty process that would reward fraud. A better approach would be to make the initial legalization dependent on the bill’s enforcement provisions, rather than a future upgrade in status. The enforcement provisions themselves would have to be strengthened by requiring, for instance, biometric exit-tracking at all ports of entry, not just airports and seaports – as it already required in current law and as was recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Another trigger for initial legalization would have to be an explicit statement by Congress that states and localities are not preempted from en forcing civil immigration law.

And any future amnesty would need to be constructed differently. Not only should all lies, however small, be punished with criminal prosecution, but the amnesty might best be conducted piecemeal, rather than addressing millions of people effectively all at once. That is to say, candidates might be considered as they are apprehended for traffic stops or factory raids or what have you, with those who fail to qualify be removed.

It is rare in Washington for the trend lines on a controversial issue to come together as favorably as they have for immigration reform.

Public support is roughly around 70%, according to various polls, with Gallup having it at 72%. Senate Republicans blocked an overhaul of immigration laws in 2007 but now a substantial bloc of Republicans, alarmed by the GOP's shrunken share of the Hispanic vote in the 2012 election, are eager to enact "comprehensive" reform legislation.

For their part, Hispanic groups recognize that this is an opportune moment for achieving their goal of citizenship for illegal immigrants in America. They are willing to accept legislation with a protracted timetable—a minimum of 13 years—before citizenship can be attained.

And two backers of immigration reform have emerged as key players since Congress took up the issue last week with hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One is President Obama. In February, the leak of a White House bill—including provisions that would be anathema to Republicans—threatened to upset the pro-reform coalition. Since then, the president has promised to stay out of the congressional deliberations.

The other is Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. His role is as critical as the president's, but for a different reason. Mr. Obama can stymie legislation, but Mr. Rubio's leadership is essential to passing immigration reform in the first place. This is why Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, longtime advocates of reform, recruited him and created the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" with four Republicans and four Democrats.

Mr. Rubio is "a game-changer," says Mr. Graham. "He brings a lot to the table," with solid conservative credentials and a large following among Republicans. Mr. Rubio is ambitious and often mentioned as a presidential candidate in 2016. But as a Cuban-American, he has motives that are more personal and ideological than purely political. This enhances his credibility.

Yet the favorable climate for changing the U.S. immigration system doesn't mean it's a cinch to pass. There are formidable opponents. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, probably the most underrated Republican on Capitol Hill, is already a dogged critic of the legislation drafted by the Gang of Eight. So is Ted Cruz of Texas, the smart and outspoken Senate freshman.

In the House, "it's going to be a lift," says Florida Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a member of a bipartisan group developing a bill expected to be similar to the Gang of Eight's. "It's super-emotional and technically very difficult."

Outside of Capitol Hill, a large chunk of the conservative media are aligned against immigration reform. National Review insists that "a great deal" of the bill is "deeply objectionable."

Then there is the Boston bombing. Its impact on the fate of immigration legislation is unclear, but it isn't likely to make passage any easier. GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the bombing has exposed "a weakness in our current system." If the immigration debate isn't used "as an opportunity to fix flaws . . . made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs."

Mr. Rubio echoed Mr. Paul. "I disagree with those who say that the terrorist attack in Boston has no bearing on the immigration debate," he said in a statement on Monday. "The attack reinforces why immigration reform should be a lengthy, open, and transparent process." The current schedule calls for a final vote before the July 4 congressional recess.

That may be optimistic. The Gang of Eight's bill is 844 pages long and provides opponents with plenty of opportunities for objections. It would create two stages toward citizenship—first legal residency here, second a green card and permanent status. Border security would have to be bolstered in measurable ways before green cards are issued and a path to becoming citizens is opened.

The security aspects of the bill—which have prompted serious attacks, mostly from conservatives—are both complicated and open to different interpretations. For instance, if in five years from the bill's enactment all nine segments of the Southwest border aren't 100% secure, and if 90% of those crossing illegally aren't being apprehended, then a Southern Border Security Commission of four governors and six Washington appointees would draft a new security plan. Whether the commission would have the authority to impose its plan is in dispute.

To answer critics, Mr. Rubio's Gang of Eight allies have largely stood aside and let him respond. He is neither shy nor risk-averse. He volunteered to appear on the talk-radio show of Mark Levin, a conservative and opponent of the proposed reform bill. The senator told Rush Limbaugh that the four governors on the 10-member border commission "will take care of this problem and they'll be given the money to be able to take care of it." He didn't explain exactly how.

Mr. Rubio is best at touting the virtues of immigration reform and refuting the notion that Hispanics, once citizens, will overwhelmingly vote Democratic. "I think the future of conservatism and, in fact, the future of America depends on how effective we are at explaining to as many Americans as possible why the road we are on right now is such an economic disaster," he said on the Limbaugh show. "I just refuse to accept the notion that somehow we're not going to be able to make that argument successfully to Hispanics."

The Senate will be first to act this year, and the bill needs 60 votes to pass. With Mr. Rubio supporting it, Mr. Graham says it can get 70 votes, including half of the 45 Republicans. He suggests passage by 48 Democrats and 22 Republicans. That's optimistic but not impossible.

The House won't rubber-stamp the Senate bill. The guest-worker program is likely to be expanded in the House. But on immigration the House isn't an automatic barrier to Senate legislation. House Speaker John Boehner and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan have spoken favorably about immigration reform.

Jeffrey Bell, a Republican consultant who works with Hispanic groups, says the momentum behind reforming the immigration system will make a bill "unstoppable" if the Senate and House pass bills and then confer to meld the two.

Will a new law help Republicans? Hispanic support for GOP presidential candidates fell from George W. Bush's 44% in 2004 to Mitt Romney's 27% last year. Mr. Rubio says that Republicans shouldn't expect a surge of Hispanic votes, but Hispanics will at least be willing to "listen to us."

Mr. Bell, a former adviser to Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp, goes further, arguing that Republicans shouldn't worry about who gets credit for successful reform. "If Democrats get 10 times more credit, it's still in Republicans' interest," he says. "It will free them" to compete for votes that, more often than not, were beyond their reach.

Mr. Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, is a Fox News commentator

The people of Boston are no longer being terrorized by the Marathon bombers, but amnesty supporters sure are.

On CNN's "State of the Union" last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham's response to the Boston Marathon bombers being worthless immigrants who hate America -- one of whom the FBI cleared even after being tipped off by Russia -- was to announce: "The fact that we could not track him has to be fixed."

Track him? How about not admitting him as an immigrant?

As if it's a defense, we're told Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (of the Back Bay Tsarnaevs) were disaffected "losers" -- the word used by their own uncle -- who couldn't make it in America. Their father had already returned to Russia. Tamerlan had dropped out of college, been arrested for domestic violence and said he had no American friends. Dzhokhar was failing most of his college courses. All of them were on welfare.

(Dzhokhar was given everything America had to offer, and now he only has one thing in his future to look forward to ... a tenured professorship.)

My thought is, maybe we should consider admitting immigrants who can succeed in America, rather than deadbeats.

But we're not allowed to "discriminate" in favor of immigrants who would be good for America. Instead of helping America, our immigration policies are designed to help other countries solve their internal problems by shipping their losers to us.

The problem isn't just illegal immigration. I would rather have doctors and engineers sneaking into the country than legally arriving ditch-diggers.

Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration act so dramatically altered the kinds of immigrants America admits that, since 1969, about 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from the Third World. They bring Third World levels of poverty, fertility, illegitimacy and domestic violence with them. When they can't make it in America, they simply go on welfare and sometimes strike out at Americans.

In addition to the four dead and more than 100 badly wounded victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, let's consider a few of the many other people who would be alive, but for Kennedy's immigration law:

-- The six Long Island railroad passengers murdered in 1993 by Jamaican immigrant Colin Ferguson. Before the shooting, Ferguson was unemployed, harassing women on subways, repeatedly bringing lawsuits against police and former employers, applying for workman's compensation for fake injuries and blaming all his problems on white people. Whom he then decided to murder.

-- The two people killed outside CIA headquarters in 1993 by Pakistani illegal immigrant Mir Qazi. He had been working as a driver for a courier company. (It's nearly impossible to find an American who can drive.)

-- Christoffer Burmeister, a 27 year-old musician killed in a mass shooting by Palestinian immigrant Ali Hassan Abu Kamal in 1997 at the Empire State Building. Hassan had immigrated to America with his family two months earlier at age 68. (It's a smart move to bring in immigrants just in time to pay them Social Security benefits!)

-- Bill Cosby's son, Ennis, killed in 1997 by 18-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Mikhail Markhasev, who had come to this country with his single mother eight years earlier -- because we were running short on single mothers.

Markhasev, who had a juvenile record, shot Cosby point-blank for taking too long to produce his wallet. He later bragged about killing a "n*gger."

-- The three people murdered at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002 by Nigerian immigrant Peter Odighizuwa, angry at America because he had failed out of law school. At least it's understandable why our immigration policies would favor a 43-year-old law student. It's so hard to get Americans to go to law school these days!

-- The stewardess and passenger murdered by Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet when he shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport in 2002. Hesham, a desperately needed limousine driver, received refugee status in the U.S. because he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently, that's a selling point if you want to immigrate to America.

-- The six men murdered by Mexican immigrant Salvador Tapia at the Windy City Core Supply warehouse in Chicago in 2003, from which he had been fired six months earlier. Tapia was still in this country despite having been arrested at least a dozen times on weapons and assault charges. Only foreign newspapers mentioned that Tapia was an immigrant. American newspapers blamed the gun.

-- The six people killed in northern Wisconsin in 2004 by Hmong immigrant Chai Soua Vang, who shot his victims in the back after being caught trespassing on their property. Minnesota Public Radio later explained that Hmong hunters don't understand American laws about private property, endangered species, or really any laws written in English. It was an unusual offense for a Hmong, whose preferred crime is raping 12- to 14-year-old girls -- as extensively covered in the Fresno Bee and Minneapolis Star Tribune.

-- The five people murdered at the Trolley Square Shopping Mall in Salt Lake City by Bosnian immigrant Sulejman Talovic in 2007. Talovic was a Muslim high school dropout with a juvenile record. No room for you, Swedish doctor. We need resentful Muslims!

-- The 32 people murdered at Virginia Tech in 2007 by Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean immigrant.

-- The 13 soldiers murdered at Fort Hood in 2009 by "accused" shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, son of Palestinian immigrants. Hasan's parents had operated a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., because where are we going to find Americans to do that?

-- The 13 people killed at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, N.Y., by Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong, who became a naturalized citizen two years after being convicted of fraud and forgery in California. Wong was angry that people disrespected him for his poor English skills.

-- Florence Donovan-Gunderson, who was shot along with her husband, and three National Guardsmen in a Carson City IHOP gunned down by Mexican immigrant Eduardo Sencion in 2011.

-- The three people, including a 15-year-old girl, murdered in their home in North Miami by Kesler Dufrene, a Haitian immigrant and convicted felon who had been arrested nine times, but was released when Obama halted deportations to Haiti after the earthquake. Dufrene chose the house at random.

-- The many African-Americans murdered by Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles in the last few years, including Jamiel Shaw Jr., a star football player being recruited by Stanford; Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old eighth-grade student chosen for murder solely because she was black; and Christopher Ash, who witnessed Green's murder.

During the three years from 2010 through 2012, immigrants have committed about a dozen mass murders in this country, not including the 9/11 attack.

The mass murderers were from Afghanistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Haiti, South Africa, Ethiopia and Mexico. None were from Canada or Western Europe.

I don't want to hear about the black crime rate or the Columbine killers. We're talking about immigrants here! There should be ZERO immigrants committing crimes.There should be ZERO immigrants accepting government assistance. There should be ZERO immigrants demanding that we speak their language.

We have no choice about native-born losers. We ought to be able to do something about the people we chose to bring here.

Meanwhile, our government officials just keep singing the praises of "diversity," while expressly excluding skilled immigrants who might be less inclined to become "disaffected" and lash out by killing Americans.

In response to the shooting at Fort Hood, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said: "As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

On "Fox News Sunday" this week, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said of the Boston bombing suspects, "We welcome these kinds of folks coming to the United States who want to be contributing American citizens."

Unless, that is, they have a college degree and bright prospects. Those immigrants are prohibited.

COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER

Logged

"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

This story went by last week. Wonder if people saw it. I don't find the study credible but it sheds light on the fact that the 11 million number is also made up and it validates what Crafty has been saying about the flow of family members that will follow legalization.

A Pew survey released today found that 35% of Mexicans say they would come to the United States, given the opportunity. With the unlimited chain migration provided by the Gang’s legislation, the choice will be theirs.

According to U.S. Senate Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the immigration bill introduced to the U.S. Senate a week and a half ago would, if passed, allow illegal immigrants to access state and local welfare benefits immediately.

==========

Separately I wonder why the need to grant citizenship instead of simply having a "statute of limitations" concept that would allow for legalization of status, but not citizenship.

"... the immigration bill introduced to the U.S. Senate a week and a half ago would, if passed, allow illegal immigrants to access state and local welfare benefits immediately"

Yes, this seems implied by the constant reference to no receiving no federal benefits. But the receiving of state and local benefits should also make the applicant a 'charge' and therefore not eligible for citizenship. That loophole/exception is a perfect example of what ought to be tightened in order to win anyone's support.

"Separately I wonder why the need to grant citizenship instead of simply having a "statute of limitations" concept that would allow for legalization of status, but not citizenship."

Agree in concept and I think that statute of limitations thinking does figure in to why we are addressing this. Failure to prosecute and deport for such an extended period became de facto legalization. The 14 year time frame, or whatever it is, is also a reflection of this. But a big part of this problem is political. If you live here and work here permanently and don't ever have voting rights, it reminds people of injustices of the past, not of the new immigrant's original wrongful entry. If there is no path ever, the issue remains front and center forever.

" If there is no path ever, the issue remains front and center forever."

mea culpa?

I see it differently. We "compromise" now only to continue having to go on defensive again.

The moderate Republican (rhino) keeps compromising thinking that will ease the relentless progressive march. Instead it allows their political movement to step forward plant there footing down from a new more strategically "forward" position from which they will continue their campaign to press towards the end game. One world government in charge and in control of the world. Until Republicans can get the low information voters to understand they are giving away our freedom I would have to agree with Marc Levin - we stand and hold our ground. I f I believed the Repubs present leaders truly believed we take a temporary defensive fall back position so we can come back and fight another day (perhaps many years from now) then I might reluctantly support them. I really don't have that kind of faith or confidence of the insightfulness of the Bushes, Roves and the Boehners. I used to be more moderate until it hit me like a sledgehammer during a Jeff Sachs speech at my nephews graduation at Lehigh some yrs ago about which I posted my experience here.

Just as shocking was the fact that my nephew and his two brothers didn't even think it was a political speech. ONe even worked for Romney. He now works for Bobby Jindal. It appears the young generation is being duped. They are too young and at this time perhaps too idealistic. Perhaps also bribed for loans and "free" health care to age 26. Wait till they get older and they themselves have to pay for this care Have to deal with high taxation, sit and watch benefits fly from their wallets to a larger and expanding segment of the population. Wait till the reality hits them the progressive movement wants to transfer their freedom and their money to the world. That is the end game. People on the board know it. But these youngsters appear ignorant of what is going on. History repeats itself because the generations over time forget. Humanity keeps reclycling.

We give in now to the "11" million illegals, then swallow up their families - I say the compromise has to come from eliminating almost all government benefits - not just to them but to us here.

We can't just keep giving out endless dollars. And yes the rest of us WILL have to work to 70 before expecting SS.

I am hopeful. The progressives cannot continue this forever before there is a huge wake up call. I don't know if it will take a crash. And in any case what arises from the rubble of such a crash is unclear. Certainly the Bushes and Roves and Boehners don't have a vision. They are detail men. I don't think they have a real plan for us. A back peddling defensive position on the Spanish vote won't work . The Democrats will just keep up the drive to buy them out with more benefits.

CCP, you make good points. Still there is nothing acceptable about the status quo of our immigration policy, which is look the other way for people already here, run our economy in a way that attracts no new workers, and advertise unlimited free food for anyone not interested in work.

The GOP options are: 1) Put enforcement with a mass deport or 'self deport' platform on the ballot for 4 more years, 8 more years, 12, 16, or the rest of our lives even though we know it will never happen - and lose ground on all other issues in the meantime. 2) 'Compromise' which means surrender and sign on with a very bad bill. Or 3) Go where Rubio was before the rotten details of this bill were exposed. Pursue in good faith some kind of reasonable, acceptable, permanent solution.

All indications are that Obama, Schumer, Durbin, Pelosi et al want an issue for 2014, not a solution in 2013. That makes the GOP negotiating strategy harder, if not impossible. MHO.

"All indications are that Obama, Schumer, Durbin, Pelosi et al want an issue for 2014, not a solution in 2013. That makes the GOP negotiating strategy harder, if not impossible. MHO."

Doug,

You could be right. I admit conservatives appear to be nearly surrounded on this issue. I don't here them making a good case that the issue is not racial though. Every time the issue is brought up it is all about the Spanish. It is not. We have I read estimates of 50 K Irish in NY here illegally. Does anyone in NJ think all these Asians many of whom work in the back of the thousands of Chinese restaurants are all legal? And to be politically correct (I am Jewish after all) perhaps some of the Israelis are not legal that I meet.

I don't hear enough people saying it is not about race or country of origin. It is about the right of the US citizens being able to decide how many people get here and their qualifications based on clean law enforcement records, demonstration ethical work behavior, or some work skill, maybe not ten dependent children ready to apply for food stamps and welfare etc.

Just wondering. If brock grants amnesty to the illegals will they have the right to vote? If yes, then I would shocked if he doesn't do it.

Listening to talk radio a lot on the right are outraged over Rubio. I am more forgiving. But one thing recent history has taught us - never ever trust a Democrat politician.

How in the world can one make a deal with any of the above four names? They have NO honor. They are all demonstrated serial pathologic liars. I don't understand why honesty is not a job requirement for Senators and Presidents. Everything I was taught growing up about this is turned inside out. Where did this get lost?

With the most cynical view possible. However, I have posted I think the same thing. Obama WILL grant amnesty. Based on this view he is probably correct. We have little choice. Again the readily apparent the precedent Ronald Reagan set was a disaster in the making. In a way he was/is overrated.

This has been the Golden Fleece for the Dems for quite some time. Al Gore as VP did some very cynical stuff on this issue too.

It is simple. The Dems see 11 million new Democratic voters -- plus all their family members who can lever their way in. We are probably looking at 20-40 million new Democrat voters over the next 25 years. Admittedly these are definitely SWAG numbers, but probably about right IMHO.

The Reps have already lost a major point by not having amnesty/statute of limitations remedy be limited to legalization of presence in the US without citizenship.

Crafty , I agree with you ; it is that simple. To clarify what I meant about Ronald Reagan in my last post;

The issues with Reagan are:

1) that spending also skyrocketed during his administration. He seemed to have no problem signing the Democrat big spending bills.

2) RR also apparently trusted (without verifying) that the borders would be sealed. Never trust a Democrat. They will always come back to squeeze more. OTOH perhaps many Republicans didn't push for border control either playing favor for their farmer constituents (cheap labor doing the back breaking field work).

3) RR said and did nothing while the savings and loan disaster hemorrhaged money. Then that amount of money seemed like an unbelievable amount . Today it is pocket change.

Fast forward to today.

I guess Rove et. al. believe the best course of action is to go along with amnesty then move forward trying to win the hearts and minds of these newly legal illegals. Fat chance they have of competing with cold hard taxpayer cash endlessly offered by the Dem party to buy these off these new voters.

I guess I don't have a better answer as Doug once asked on this thread.

Until a crash bangs people over the head that the party spending taxpayer money is over.

Where a goodly part of the spending increase under Reagan came from was that, thanks to Volcker's hard line at the Fed and thanks to the tremendous success of the tax RATE cuts in stimulating true growth, inflation dropped far faster than almost anyone predicted. Thus baseline nominal spending projections became real increases to the extent that decreases in inflation were unforeseen.

The Foundation"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence." --Alexander HamiltonEditorial Exegesis

"The Boston Marathon bombers hated America, but they loved the American dole. The suspects in the scheme to murder and maim innocent men, women and children were living off the generosity of the American taxpayers they hated. The Boston Herald reports that the 'brains' of the operation, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was on the Massachusetts dole with his wife, Katherine, and their 3-year-old daughter, Zahara. The parents of the Tsarnaev brothers received welfare and the accused brother, Dzhokhar, received benefits when he was a child. Taxpayer generosity to the Tsarnaev family did not end there. The city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar a $2,500 scholarship toward his education at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. ... Taxpayers are even paying for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyer. Congress turns now to immigration reform, and the Tsarnaev case raises important issues about the high price of certain public policies under consideration. ... [Republican Sen. Jeff] Sessions observes that the Department of Homeland Security has been ignoring a 100-year-old law that requires that the government consider, before admitting an immigrant, the likelihood that he will become a 'public charge,' who will eventually be permanently dependent on public welfare. Less than 1 percent of visa applications were denied on these grounds in 2011, despite a growing number of undocumented residents who live on food stamps and other welfare programs. The Tsarnaev brothers were granted political asylum because they were Muslims from Chechnya. ... The immigration debate gives Congress a chance to re-evaluate the wisdom of sacrificing Americans for political correctness by sending invitations to prospective citizens in parts of the world where nearly everybody hates America and all it stands for. This phenomenon illustrates the need for vigilance, to make sure immigrants will become productive, prosperous Americans. Sadly, it seems the primary motivation of the president and his party on immigration reform is to create 11 million new Democratic voters with an amnesty, and hang the cost." --The Washington Times

(Doug: Let's do it the other way around, let immigration reform kill Obamacare.)

Also Labrador pledged that he would not support a bill that breaks the so-called Hastert Rule – meaning that for him, immigration reform legislation must have the backing of at least half of House Republicans.

By SEUNG MIN KIM | 5/22/13 2:13 PM EDT

A key House Republican negotiator on immigration is warning Democrats that the health care law – a favorite boogeyman of the GOP – could be the downfall of comprehensive immigration reform.

“What might be the story at the end of this year, at the end of this session, is that Obamacare killed immigration reform,” Rep. Raul Labrador said Wednesday. The Idaho Republican is one of eight House lawmakers who have engaged in private talks on immigration reform.

The health care law has flared up as a major problem in those talks; group members declared last week that they had struck a deal “in principle” but have yet to work out the fine print.

House Democratic leaders are uneasy with the idea of blocking undocumented immigrants from accessing publicly-subsidized care – such as health coverage if they have to be treated in an emergency room. That could have the effect of deporting the immigrants if they can’t afford those expenses, Democrats worry.

Republicans, however, are insisting that no public dollars – from federal to the local level – will fund the tab for health coverage for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. Negotiators are looking at an end-of-the-week deadline to smooth out the differences on health care between the two sides.

While the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared a major hurdle Tuesday by passing the Gang of Eight legislation and sending it to the Senate floor, the House group is struggling to finalize its tentative agreement.

One of its members, Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), floated the idea of releasing a plan in the first week of June, but this latest dispute over health care throws that timeline into doubt.

“I think [Democrats] just need to accept that the American people are not going to be responsible for the health care costs of the people that are here illegally,” Labrador said Wednesday. “That’s been a fundamental issue for me from day one, that it’s not going to come out of the pockets of the American people.”

Labrador also pledged that he would not support a bill that breaks the so-called Hastert Rule – meaning that for him, immigration reform legislation must have the backing of at least half of House Republicans.

On one issue – a new guest-worker program for lower-skilled immigrants – the two parties have already decided to go separate paths. The Democrats will present the plan in the Senate bill that was negotiated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major labor unions.